I'm no big-time MMORPG player (I have played a bit of EQ and Guild Wars normally, and dabbled in other games), but I think gold is a replacement for friends when you start out. When I first started playing Everquest, I was lucky enough to have a friend in the game, and found another person nice that helped me get decent money and weapons/equipment (some handed right to me). At least to me, others helping you get started seems incredebly useful. Now what if you didn't find anyone friendly and didn't have any friends in the game willing to give you some backing as a newbie? Well then your shit out of luck, and might buy gold to get stuff with. Be it from a friend or a store using money-bought gold, The end result of getting equipment easily is the same. And let's be realistic. Getting the first amounts of gold needed for decent equipment can be extremely tedious and IMHO is an easy way to drive players away, because they know there is so much more they can do, but are limited to getting the basics down first.
I am no movie analyst (So I may be completely wrong), but I've always been under the assumption that the reason movies produced in the US were so much "better" (In graphics at least) was because unlike other countries, we didn't find it overkill to put $100+ million or often even more into production of a movie. So he is predicting the fall of modern Hollywood it would seem? I guess that could be somewhat possible, since computers have been making it cheaper to "build sets". The biggest problem would probably be adjusting Hollywood pay scales down to that of normal people, where they should be (I'm just jelous they probably love what they do and get millions for it, and acting does look fun as hell).
Wow, that's great to hear the situation actually changed quite a bit. Although it's very admirable to be dedicated to your job and enjoy what your doing, if you have a family or something like that, you just _can't_ be that dedicated and have a healthy relationship with the rest of your family.
I agree jobs being done overseas is part of a global economy. But the current state of outsourcing is fundamentally no different to a company in the US then clothing makers having their clothes made in sweatshops overseas. Moral issues aside, that's ok, because we have moved from being a manufacturing based economy to an information based economy. But with them starting to move information based jobs overseas, what can we do now other then find jobs that might be under our ability? For outsourcing to be ok as part of a global economy, it would be done on the basis of skills. Country foo has better programmers then us? They should get our jobs then. It's as simple as that for a global economy. I have no idea about the quality India's IT skills, but I'm assuming they are no different then those of someone in America who worked hard to get their skills. And at least in the area of tech support, outsourcing is clearly hurting the quality of service. It seems that if I call tech support for anything, I can clearly tell if it has been outsourced due to poor email grammar or not being able to understand them. True, some may have been outsourced and I haven't noticed, but if someone can't effectively communicate with customers, someone else should have the job. And I have had no problem understanding professors with accents when others have complained, so you know it must be bad.
I'll go with development of other software and systems before games. The thing is, from what I've heard, even if a company like EA isn't breathing down your back forcing long hours on you, game development takes a lot of dedication, more so then the development of a lot of other types of software. And this will no doubt increase even more with the complexities being brought on by new systems that must sap every single CPU cycle possible from multi-core systems. I can produce decent code at a decent rate (for someone still in college), but between EA and the HL2 developers blog, I've seen enough. Anyone here work at a game dev company and can vouch for the dedication they have to put in?
Am I the only one that finds this number a little low? They could probably bump it up to 99% and still be right. Assuming they aren't including other types of files Office doesn't do (like cartography files as an example), I would think.doc,.xls,.ppt and the like account for almost all document types. I know if I have a document in OpenOffice or something similar, getting it to.doc format usually isn't far off, since otherwise it seems like noone else can really use it.
Hah, if they are using half-way decent computers, they should provide more then enough heat. I'd be more concerned about their lack of a/c with a room full of computer....
I want a Cell Phone. One that isn't the size of a damn PDA, but has text input via a stylus and touchscreen.... Large Phones deter me..... But it's useful being able to "pencil in" appointments, assignments, and stuff like that on a PDA.
True the government isn't perfect, but we are still here, right? The US government _usually_ does stabilize things that could become out of control in one way or another internally. Externally on the other hand, that's out of the scope of this post....
The thought of voilence video games having an impact on someone seemed quite evident with the story slashdot did a little while ago in wish a soldier said something similar to "It's just like halo" when talking about being in the military....
Depending on how valuble each amount of metal is (are we talking 5 tons of pure silver, or 5 pounds of platinum?), this sounds like the kind of stuff that could destabilize economies.....
My greatest fear in reviews begins to come into fruition... I've always loved customer reviews of stuff (like newegg, amazon, and even ePinions), since it can give a more joe schmoe look at the product, and it is not of a sample of the product that a manufacturer may have hand-picked and inspected for a reviewer to review because it will not have problems (it isn't always that way, but I'm sure sometimes it is). This ploy sounds border-line on this type of situation, and the only next step they could take would be planting reviews, leaving the customer review community as a useless resource.
Ah. So I'll be damned. I guess the availability in some stores (the kind that take a week or so to actually get games out after there release date (Walmart)) made me think otherwise....
I've always hated it when companies miss Christmas. Final Fantasy X is the biggest example (Came out like a week after Christmas as I recall in a surprise release) I can think of, but I think there were other situations too. I know they are working there hardest to get this thing out ASAP, but Christmas launch seasons are perhaps the most important time, considering for anyone under 13 (without a part-time job), that is the only way they will get one (although current prices could effect that trend). Other then loosing time to the XBox 360 though, perhaps this will benefit them, by allowing them to have a fully-polished (publicly tested) and price-reduced console ready for Christmas 07 once it has been out for half a year.... No overheating power bricks.... No ability to run pirated stuff using a glitch.... Not having to tip it upside-down in it's old age to get it to work....
And Ironic timing since I just said how 7.1 was more then enough for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. I've got 7.1 speakers in my dorm (Creative S750; not an audiophile's choice, but they do have good sound for the money, with good treble which is hard to find for multimedia speakers). I've got them hooked up as 5.1 right now since I have no place to put the other two speakers. Do I miss them? Not really. I enjoy having less cords spread throughout the room though. If I didn't find them so cheap, I would have gotten 5.1. Speakers can of course be internal fixtures or have small "ducts" on the wall to hide the wires, but Unless you have a dedicated room, the 7.1 arrangment can be rather hard to arrange. This isn't even taking into account that many people place their sofas against a wall, leaving no place to put a third (rear, or where rear would be with side speakers added) set of speakers.
We've all been waiting for one format to fail (which probably won't happen for another few years or so), so we will be able to go out and get a player and media without fear it would be useless a year later. This strikes me as a small (as in still very possible and practically equally likely for Sony to take the lead without some miracle taking place) push into HD-DVD's direction as the future format. I hope Blu-Ray will come out on top though, since their capacity would probably be more 1080p friendly (Although I am not sure an HD-DVD cannot hold two hours of 1080p footage). I'm more curious about what the generation after that will push as the reason for upgrading (since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD max out the HDTV/ATSC picture quality, and any more then 7.1 speakers would be too many physical speakers).
Thank you for the lengthy response. I've been curious as to how in practice a lot of what I have been taught is in Japan (at least from a gaijins perspective). I guess that's probably part of how I was taught. My teacher taught us with the intention of us looking at the Japanese from a Japanese perspective, so there are probably a lot of things that a foreigner would inevitibly see different (as you have). I guess the place it seems would be most difficult would some business and traditional (such as tea ceramony) settings. As you've said, the linguistic honorifics are difficult. I've been taught they are something considered very useful in Japanese culture, and even the Japanese don't always master it (I'm relating it to public speaking). Thanks again. I hope to go to Japan someday, and it's nice to know it isn't as bad as it seems.
Informative post from a local. You make the average Japanese house sound like a hotel room in size (which I am living in right now since my university owns it, so I understand the situation). I will admit I know practically nothing about Japan's economy, and that was an assumtion I made that appears to have been wrong (although I'm hoping the rest I said was fairly accurate). I thought there might have also been laws that forced junkers off the road, but I wasn't sure. How was it adapting to the culture? Assuming your not native (which it sounded like you aren't), I would think it would have been pretty difficult at first getting used to the honorifics system and their lack of direct communication with many topics (I was told a direct "no" is rarely used). I won't even get started in the US mentallity being mostly "me me me" and the Japanese mentality at least seeming like "you you you" on the outside in all but the most personal situations. And also, is the Japanese mindset really more focused as being part of a whole (be it a family, country, or company) in comparison of the US mindset of individuality? I'd be interested to hear a perspective from someone other then my sensei (native).
You seem somewhat knowledgable about Japan. That is very true. America wants bang for the buck. Japan wants good quality at higher expense. It's the reason why you don't see too many junkers on the roads in Japan. I also remember reading somewhere (not sure if this article touched on it) that the shuffle was the most popular music player in Japan, not the bulky HD based ones like here in the US. From what I've learned (from a native Japanese teacher), Japan is a very unique country, and their tastes and thoughts are harder to understand as an American then one might think. I just don't understand why Sony == quality to them (Natives I know have said this, although it may not go for most of Japan). I've seen Sony products act up and have worse warranties then a lot of other manufacturers. But then again, the same could be said about many Apple products, yet they are known for their quality.
True. But typically if they have a very similar alternative that when you get down to it has almost no functional difference, it seems they have choosen their variant (Often electronics). Take an mp3 player for example. When you get down to it, they are pretty similar. They have different sizes, capacities, and sound quality, but among the basic traits, most large manufacturers sell a model that is basically the same as a competing model other than interface, casing, support, build quality, and stuff like that. Yes, there are some big variations between mp3 players (format support for example), but in general, these big variations are either not something most of their consumers are interested in, or something their competitors will eventually incorporate in one way or another. I guess that's probably why a brand being called high quality is such a good thing, because it's the most important feature that is individual to each device. Makes me kinda wonder why I spend so much time researching my purchases.........
Japan is a culture that has been historically known for being very group centric, and supportive of the group which they are part of. Them choosing a foreign product over a local product is thus surprising to me. I assumed the fact that the XBox was foreign was the main reason it never took off in Japan. Then again, it was more or less a "PS2 without Japanese games" when you look at the big picture of consoles at the time, so that may be he reason for it's bad sales. I'm guessing the popularity of the iPod is due to the younger generation breaking off from the ideals of the older generation, and willing to buy an interesting product even if it is foreign. Even today Japan is going through big changes in terms of the position of women in society and external influence.
MMORPG (which is the very large bulk of MMOG out there) isn't mentioned in the summary or the article (by what I skimmed). I wonder if this is to deter comments about "howabout an RPG in the first place?".
I want to know about the developers. Chrono Trigger (which had DQ, FF, and DBZ talent poured into it as I recall) was a masterpiece. It'd be interesting to see what the FF and DQ team could come up with together now that they are in a single company.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm no big-time MMORPG player (I have played a bit of EQ and Guild Wars normally, and dabbled in other games), but I think gold is a replacement for friends when you start out. When I first started playing Everquest, I was lucky enough to have a friend in the game, and found another person nice that helped me get decent money and weapons/equipment (some handed right to me). At least to me, others helping you get started seems incredebly useful. Now what if you didn't find anyone friendly and didn't have any friends in the game willing to give you some backing as a newbie? Well then your shit out of luck, and might buy gold to get stuff with. Be it from a friend or a store using money-bought gold, The end result of getting equipment easily is the same. And let's be realistic. Getting the first amounts of gold needed for decent equipment can be extremely tedious and IMHO is an easy way to drive players away, because they know there is so much more they can do, but are limited to getting the basics down first.
I am no movie analyst (So I may be completely wrong), but I've always been under the assumption that the reason movies produced in the US were so much "better" (In graphics at least) was because unlike other countries, we didn't find it overkill to put $100+ million or often even more into production of a movie. So he is predicting the fall of modern Hollywood it would seem? I guess that could be somewhat possible, since computers have been making it cheaper to "build sets". The biggest problem would probably be adjusting Hollywood pay scales down to that of normal people, where they should be (I'm just jelous they probably love what they do and get millions for it, and acting does look fun as hell).
Wow, that's great to hear the situation actually changed quite a bit. Although it's very admirable to be dedicated to your job and enjoy what your doing, if you have a family or something like that, you just _can't_ be that dedicated and have a healthy relationship with the rest of your family.
I agree jobs being done overseas is part of a global economy. But the current state of outsourcing is fundamentally no different to a company in the US then clothing makers having their clothes made in sweatshops overseas. Moral issues aside, that's ok, because we have moved from being a manufacturing based economy to an information based economy. But with them starting to move information based jobs overseas, what can we do now other then find jobs that might be under our ability? For outsourcing to be ok as part of a global economy, it would be done on the basis of skills. Country foo has better programmers then us? They should get our jobs then. It's as simple as that for a global economy. I have no idea about the quality India's IT skills, but I'm assuming they are no different then those of someone in America who worked hard to get their skills. And at least in the area of tech support, outsourcing is clearly hurting the quality of service. It seems that if I call tech support for anything, I can clearly tell if it has been outsourced due to poor email grammar or not being able to understand them. True, some may have been outsourced and I haven't noticed, but if someone can't effectively communicate with customers, someone else should have the job. And I have had no problem understanding professors with accents when others have complained, so you know it must be bad.
I'll go with development of other software and systems before games. The thing is, from what I've heard, even if a company like EA isn't breathing down your back forcing long hours on you, game development takes a lot of dedication, more so then the development of a lot of other types of software. And this will no doubt increase even more with the complexities being brought on by new systems that must sap every single CPU cycle possible from multi-core systems. I can produce decent code at a decent rate (for someone still in college), but between EA and the HL2 developers blog, I've seen enough. Anyone here work at a game dev company and can vouch for the dedication they have to put in?
Am I the only one that finds this number a little low? They could probably bump it up to 99% and still be right. Assuming they aren't including other types of files Office doesn't do (like cartography files as an example), I would think .doc, .xls, .ppt and the like account for almost all document types. I know if I have a document in OpenOffice or something similar, getting it to .doc format usually isn't far off, since otherwise it seems like noone else can really use it.
Hah, if they are using half-way decent computers, they should provide more then enough heat. I'd be more concerned about their lack of a/c with a room full of computer....
I want a Cell Phone. One that isn't the size of a damn PDA, but has text input via a stylus and touchscreen.... Large Phones deter me..... But it's useful being able to "pencil in" appointments, assignments, and stuff like that on a PDA.
True the government isn't perfect, but we are still here, right? The US government _usually_ does stabilize things that could become out of control in one way or another internally. Externally on the other hand, that's out of the scope of this post....
The thought of voilence video games having an impact on someone seemed quite evident with the story slashdot did a little while ago in wish a soldier said something similar to "It's just like halo" when talking about being in the military....
Depending on how valuble each amount of metal is (are we talking 5 tons of pure silver, or 5 pounds of platinum?), this sounds like the kind of stuff that could destabilize economies.....
My greatest fear in reviews begins to come into fruition... I've always loved customer reviews of stuff (like newegg, amazon, and even ePinions), since it can give a more joe schmoe look at the product, and it is not of a sample of the product that a manufacturer may have hand-picked and inspected for a reviewer to review because it will not have problems (it isn't always that way, but I'm sure sometimes it is). This ploy sounds border-line on this type of situation, and the only next step they could take would be planting reviews, leaving the customer review community as a useless resource.
Ah. So I'll be damned. I guess the availability in some stores (the kind that take a week or so to actually get games out after there release date (Walmart)) made me think otherwise....
I've always hated it when companies miss Christmas. Final Fantasy X is the biggest example (Came out like a week after Christmas as I recall in a surprise release) I can think of, but I think there were other situations too. I know they are working there hardest to get this thing out ASAP, but Christmas launch seasons are perhaps the most important time, considering for anyone under 13 (without a part-time job), that is the only way they will get one (although current prices could effect that trend). Other then loosing time to the XBox 360 though, perhaps this will benefit them, by allowing them to have a fully-polished (publicly tested) and price-reduced console ready for Christmas 07 once it has been out for half a year.... No overheating power bricks.... No ability to run pirated stuff using a glitch.... Not having to tip it upside-down in it's old age to get it to work....
And Ironic timing since I just said how 7.1 was more then enough for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. I've got 7.1 speakers in my dorm (Creative S750; not an audiophile's choice, but they do have good sound for the money, with good treble which is hard to find for multimedia speakers). I've got them hooked up as 5.1 right now since I have no place to put the other two speakers. Do I miss them? Not really. I enjoy having less cords spread throughout the room though. If I didn't find them so cheap, I would have gotten 5.1. Speakers can of course be internal fixtures or have small "ducts" on the wall to hide the wires, but Unless you have a dedicated room, the 7.1 arrangment can be rather hard to arrange. This isn't even taking into account that many people place their sofas against a wall, leaving no place to put a third (rear, or where rear would be with side speakers added) set of speakers.
Lucky you (presuming you mean tub). When I woke up in a tub of Ice, I had both kidneys missing....
When I realizeed the Zelda series (and NES) was 20 years old, I was shocked realizing how quickly time has gone by.........
We've all been waiting for one format to fail (which probably won't happen for another few years or so), so we will be able to go out and get a player and media without fear it would be useless a year later. This strikes me as a small (as in still very possible and practically equally likely for Sony to take the lead without some miracle taking place) push into HD-DVD's direction as the future format. I hope Blu-Ray will come out on top though, since their capacity would probably be more 1080p friendly (Although I am not sure an HD-DVD cannot hold two hours of 1080p footage). I'm more curious about what the generation after that will push as the reason for upgrading (since Blu-Ray and HD-DVD max out the HDTV/ATSC picture quality, and any more then 7.1 speakers would be too many physical speakers).
Thank you for the lengthy response. I've been curious as to how in practice a lot of what I have been taught is in Japan (at least from a gaijins perspective). I guess that's probably part of how I was taught. My teacher taught us with the intention of us looking at the Japanese from a Japanese perspective, so there are probably a lot of things that a foreigner would inevitibly see different (as you have). I guess the place it seems would be most difficult would some business and traditional (such as tea ceramony) settings. As you've said, the linguistic honorifics are difficult. I've been taught they are something considered very useful in Japanese culture, and even the Japanese don't always master it (I'm relating it to public speaking). Thanks again. I hope to go to Japan someday, and it's nice to know it isn't as bad as it seems.
Informative post from a local. You make the average Japanese house sound like a hotel room in size (which I am living in right now since my university owns it, so I understand the situation). I will admit I know practically nothing about Japan's economy, and that was an assumtion I made that appears to have been wrong (although I'm hoping the rest I said was fairly accurate). I thought there might have also been laws that forced junkers off the road, but I wasn't sure. How was it adapting to the culture? Assuming your not native (which it sounded like you aren't), I would think it would have been pretty difficult at first getting used to the honorifics system and their lack of direct communication with many topics (I was told a direct "no" is rarely used). I won't even get started in the US mentallity being mostly "me me me" and the Japanese mentality at least seeming like "you you you" on the outside in all but the most personal situations. And also, is the Japanese mindset really more focused as being part of a whole (be it a family, country, or company) in comparison of the US mindset of individuality? I'd be interested to hear a perspective from someone other then my sensei (native).
You seem somewhat knowledgable about Japan. That is very true. America wants bang for the buck. Japan wants good quality at higher expense. It's the reason why you don't see too many junkers on the roads in Japan. I also remember reading somewhere (not sure if this article touched on it) that the shuffle was the most popular music player in Japan, not the bulky HD based ones like here in the US. From what I've learned (from a native Japanese teacher), Japan is a very unique country, and their tastes and thoughts are harder to understand as an American then one might think. I just don't understand why Sony == quality to them (Natives I know have said this, although it may not go for most of Japan). I've seen Sony products act up and have worse warranties then a lot of other manufacturers. But then again, the same could be said about many Apple products, yet they are known for their quality.
True. But typically if they have a very similar alternative that when you get down to it has almost no functional difference, it seems they have choosen their variant (Often electronics). Take an mp3 player for example. When you get down to it, they are pretty similar. They have different sizes, capacities, and sound quality, but among the basic traits, most large manufacturers sell a model that is basically the same as a competing model other than interface, casing, support, build quality, and stuff like that. Yes, there are some big variations between mp3 players (format support for example), but in general, these big variations are either not something most of their consumers are interested in, or something their competitors will eventually incorporate in one way or another. I guess that's probably why a brand being called high quality is such a good thing, because it's the most important feature that is individual to each device. Makes me kinda wonder why I spend so much time researching my purchases.........
Japan is a culture that has been historically known for being very group centric, and supportive of the group which they are part of. Them choosing a foreign product over a local product is thus surprising to me. I assumed the fact that the XBox was foreign was the main reason it never took off in Japan. Then again, it was more or less a "PS2 without Japanese games" when you look at the big picture of consoles at the time, so that may be he reason for it's bad sales. I'm guessing the popularity of the iPod is due to the younger generation breaking off from the ideals of the older generation, and willing to buy an interesting product even if it is foreign. Even today Japan is going through big changes in terms of the position of women in society and external influence.
MMORPG (which is the very large bulk of MMOG out there) isn't mentioned in the summary or the article (by what I skimmed). I wonder if this is to deter comments about "howabout an RPG in the first place?".
I want to know about the developers. Chrono Trigger (which had DQ, FF, and DBZ talent poured into it as I recall) was a masterpiece. It'd be interesting to see what the FF and DQ team could come up with together now that they are in a single company.